However, it wasn't without hesitations. I was very conflicted as I felt that, perhaps, by describing the books without the multicultural label it could be construed that I was ashamed of it. That, somehow, I was afraid of these books wearing their diversity label proudly. I'm still concerned about that.

However (as I wrote on the sheet), I do feel that these books are much more than their racial identities. These are all books with universal themes and emotions that all readers can relate to. But, the racial label, unfortunately, tends to blind readers to everything else that these stories are. And, that, in the end, make the books invisible. Which is an even graver issue, in my mind.

So, here is the Cheat Sheet! Due to my own time, it's not as extensive as I wanted (if people find this useful, I'd love to expand this into 3 or 4 different sheets, one for MG, YA, etc). But, please download it and distribute it wisely as well as widely. Because we need people to read diverse books and they aren't going to without some help.

I am downloading this too, and posting it to my blog. You've done a great job addressing this issue. I especially liked the coverage in PW:

"Lin agreed that multicultural books aren’t just for minorities. Young readers, she said, have to learn how to adapt and relate to other people, she said, “If non-minority kids don’t get diverse books, they will grow up with only stereotypes” of people of color."

I've tried to address this in my books, too, the first of which just published with Disney-Hyperion. Kids being kids. Period. Some of them African American, some white. But showing readers the universality of growing up.